This easy, tasty gluten-free cornbread is slightly sweet and has a lovely texture. It makes a great side dish with chili or other soups. And it’s picky child approved!

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As I’ve said before, I am on a constant mission to make gluten-free foods that my picky eater will eat. She gets stomach aches if she eats gluten, but bread and pasta are her favorite foods! What’s a mom to do? Well, this mom tries recipe after recipe until I find something she will eat.

This cornbread is my latest success! I took a recipe that I’d gotten from a friend years ago, and made some adjustments. Instead of the wheat flour that it calls for, I substituted oat flour. My daughter has a gluten sensitivity, so basic oat flour is fine for her. If you have celiac disease or a more serious condition, make sure you buy the kind that says “gluten-free” on the package. Oat flour can be hard to find. If you can’t find it at a store near you, you can take regular oats and grind them in a food processor. You can also order it online.

I avoid most gluten-free flours. The typical substitutes available for wheat flour, the ones that say things like “gluten-free all-purpose flour” or “gluten-. free one-to-one flour” are made with things like potato starch and cellulose .

They also almost always contain rice flour, which I try to avoid for two reasons. First, my daughter is tired of “everything tasting like rice,” since it’s the main ingredient in so many gluten-free products. And second, I find that I gain weight whenever I eat rice. If you are curious about that, you can learn more by reading My Healthy Journey.

When you bake with oat flour, the texture of your baked goods can be too crumbly. Luckily, there is a way to fix this! If you add some xanthan gum it improves the texture greatly. You may be wondering what xanthan gum is. According to my bag of Bob’s Red Mill xanthan gum, it “is made from the outer layer of a tiny, inactive bacterium called Xanthomonas campestris. It is an excellent all-purpose thickener…(and) its unique binding ability makes it the ideal substitute for gluten in gluten-free baking.”

I reduced the sugar a bit from the original recipe since I try to not have too much sugar in our diets. The original recipe called for 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons). I initially halved it to 2 tablespoons. That was tasty, but my kids said they would like it a little sweeter. So three tablespoons should be plenty to please the kids, and you could use two if you want to reduce it further.

The last thing I want to mention is my choice of fat for the recipe. The original recipe called for “vegetable oil.” Don’t eat that – it’s poison! I switched it to unsalted butter because it is a much healthier choice, and is also more delicious! If the phrase “butter is healthy” confuses you, please read my article about feeding your family healthy fats! If you would prefer, avocado oil would work well, too, and is another healthy choice. Melted coconut oil is good for you and can be substituted, but it would give your cornbread a coconut flavor. My daughter doesn’t like coconut, so that wouldn’t work for us.

I served our cornbread with chili. It would also be great alongside any kind of soup. Why don’t you try it with my Butternut Squash Soup? Or try my gluten-free cornbread as a side dish with one of these gluten-free recipes to round out your meal:

Family-friendly Cheeseburger Casserole

Jalapeno Popper Chicken Skillet

Baked Chicken with Spinach and Artichokes

Strawberry Salad with Mint, Feta, and Prosciutto

Caprese Salad 3 Ways

You can easily double the recipe and bake it in a 9 x 13 pan. Give my gluten-free cornbread a try and let me know what you think!